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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26786485">Day Two</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/meterokinesis/pseuds/meterokinesis'>meterokinesis</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020 (multifandom) [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Percy Jackson and the Olympians &amp; Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Whumptober 2020, basically a timeline of annabeth and luke's relationship, no betas we die like demigods, some mentions of kids being in unsafe situations, they're okay dw, they're siblings ok none of that crush bs</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 05:48:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,425</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26786485</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/meterokinesis/pseuds/meterokinesis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Whumptober Day Two</p><p>Starvation | Concussion | <b>Betrayal</b></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Annabeth Chase &amp; Percy Jackson, Luke Castellan &amp; Annabeth Chase &amp; Thalia Grace</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020 (multifandom) [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950619</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Day Two</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is still 20 minutes before midnight so it counts. Have some unbeta'd angst about my favorite PJO characters.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first time Annabeth Chase saw Luke Castellan, she thought he looked like Sleeping Beauty’s prince. She had always preferred Belle over Aurora, but Prince Phillip was kind and funny and slayed dragons. But Luke wasn’t going to let her hide away in a tower, instead he gave her a dagger, looked her in her eyes, and told her she was brave.</p><p>No one had ever called her brave before. Smart, creative, stubborn, yes--but never brave. It was the sort of word she could find herself growing to love, along with these kids who were just like her.</p><p> </p><p>Luke was from Connecticut and was what Annabeth’s step-mom called a “yankee.” He wore a UCONN Huskies sweatshirt that was two sizes too big and had definitely been stolen. While Thalia avoided talking about her life back home--all they knew is that she was a child of Zeus and she was from California. Sometimes she muttered a name in her sleep, something about a Jaden or Jacob. But Luke was full of stories.</p><p>Luke liked to talk about ghosts. He always said that it was because Connecticut was the most haunted state, but Annabeth thought that was just the way he was. One night, as they all huddled around a small fire in their Ohio safehouse, she finally asked.</p><p>“Why do you like ghost stories so much?” She demanded, interrupting one such story.</p><p>Luke pondered this for a moment, but the smirk-y grin on his face told her that he already knew.</p><p>“If we ever want to know anything about the future, we have to know about the past. For gods, it’s easy to mix the two up. But people like us--demigods--we have to be careful. We need to know the pitfalls of every demigod who came before us, because we’re destined to repeat their mistakes. I like ghost stories because they’re easier, but the meaning is the same.”</p><p>Annabeth listened, enraptured. Thalia glanced up at the pair and chuffed a laugh, then went back to cleaning her sword. She thought Luke’s stories were childish, but Annabeth thought she was just scared. Not like Luke. Luke wasn’t scared of anything.</p><p>“Annabeth, do you know what hubris is?” He asked, catching her attention again.</p><p>Annabeth frowned, wracking her brain for an answer. “It’s that thing you eat with pita bread right?”</p><p>Luke smiled, but didn’t laugh at her. He never laughed at her.</p><p>“No, it’s something all demigods have. It means a fatal flaw. All of us have something that will lead to our downfall if we let it. Like, Icarus flew too close to the sun. Arachne thought she was better than Athena. We’re mortals playing an eternal game.”</p><p>“Quit philosophizing. It’s getting late, we should all go to bed,” Thalia chimed in, setting down her sword with a clang.</p><p>Annabeth kept looking at Luke. “What’s your hubris?”</p><p>Luke didn’t look at her when he answered.</p><p>“I don’t know.”</p><p> </p><p>Living with Luke and Thalia was like camping, except with more people asking them if they were homeless. They found a disposable camera and took photos of all three of them--”just in case,” Luke said.</p><p>It all got worse when Thalia got injured. They were in New York, right near Weschester County. From the way he stood and the set of his jaw, Annabeth could tell it hurt for him to be here. Even when Luke talked about Connecticut, he never talked about his family. But now he was buying them Metro-North tickets to Westport, and his hands only shook a little when he handed them to the conductor.</p><p>Annabeth leaned against him during the ride, and only when his hand came up to stroke her hair did she drift off to sleep.</p><p> </p><p>Annabeth hated it in Westport. Luke’s house was a lot like her dad’s on the outside, big and fancy. But while Annabeth’s step-mom had a cleaning lady come in every Tuesday, Luke’s house looked like a hurricane had torn through it. And Luke’s mom was scary, but a different scary than monsters. She was like a ghost in the body of a person.</p><p>She only had to stay there for a few hours, however, before Luke was tugging her hand and yelling at Thalia and they were on their way out the door. By nightfall, they were at their safehouse in Rhode Island, right by the beach.</p><p>Luke went to get firewood, claiming some ocean air would do him good. Soon, it was just Thalia and Annabeth, setting up capm in silence.</p><p>“Why did we leave?” Annabeth finally asked. Thalia just grimaced.</p><p>“He met his dad,” she said simply, “and it didn’t go well.”</p><p>Annabeth nodded, and they finished their tasks in silence.</p><p> </p><p>The Hunters hated Luke, so Annabeth hated them. It was that simple. Thalia seemed to agree, so Annabeth felt no remorse leaving them behind. The three of them were a family, and they’d always be that way.</p><p> </p><p>Grover wasn’t necessarily part of the family, but he was like the kid-next-door who’s always hanging around. He was jumpy and snacked on tin cans and let Annabeth touch his horns when she asked. Within a day, she decided she liked him.</p><p>He found them in Vermont, up in the mountains where Annabeth’s dad used to take her for Christmas break. He told them that he could take them to a camp where demigods lived and trained. The trio huddled in the corner and voted, all in favor. So they went, just like that.</p><p> </p><p>Camp Half-Blood wasn’t the same without Thalia, but she didn’t expect it to be. The first few nights, she stayed in the Hermes cabin with Luke. She had top bunk and he had bottom, because he promised to protect her if anything tried to attack her in the night. She believed him, of course. Why wouldn’t she?</p><p>The night Annabeth got claimed, the first thing she did was look to Luke, not to her new siblings. She’d still see him, of course, but she’d have to move to the Athena cabin and couldn’t do activities with him anymore.</p><p>He gave her a tight-lipped smile, and whispered, “Go.” Lip trembling, she nodded and walked away from the campfire with her new siblings. But no matter what, Luke would be her family.</p><p> </p><p>The first time someone broke her heart, she went to Luke. When she won her first game of capture the flag, she and Luke celebrated with a smuggled-in cake from Dairy Queen. When she decided she wanted to be an architect, Luke offered up his laptop and helped her look at colleges.</p><p>When he was sent on a quest, she helped him pack. At ten, she was getting lanky and awkward, but Luke didn’t care. He still tweaked her nose and gently pushed her around like he always had. She watched as he left camp, waited a full five minutes, then turned back to the Big House to go ask Chiron when she could go on her own quest.</p><p> </p><p>When Luke came back with a dragon’s claw, a scar, and something scary in his eyes, she said nothing. Instead, she grinned wide and hugged him tightly and told him everything that happened while he was gone. He ruffled her hair like he always did, but his movements were hollower now.</p><p> </p><p>When Annabeth first saw Percy Jackson, she couldn’t see how this boy was supposed to save them all. She told Luke as much, but he just laughed and continued on with cabin checks.</p><p>“You never know, Annabeth. People can surprise you.”</p><p> </p><p>When Percy received the prophecy, Annabeth bounded into Luke’s room, rambling about the quest she would surely be picked for and this boy who was nobody and somebody all at the same time. Luke just nodded as she talked, rustling through his chest. Finally he withdrew an old UCONN Huskies sweatshirt, one that would probably fit him perfectly now.</p><p>“Here,” he said simply, handing it to Annabeth. “It’s yours now.”</p><p>Wordlessly, she nodded and hugged it close. It would be too big, she knew, but it was a piece of her family. And that was all that mattered.</p><p> </p><p>Annabeth clutched the sweatshirt in her hands as she cried, trying in vain not to let the teardrops stain the old photographs. They had been taken with a disposable camera, the date in the corner from five years before. He was gone, of that she was sure.</p><p>In just one day, her knight had become the monster. And now it was her job to solve it all.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Kudos and comments are always appreciated but never required!</p><p>You can find me on tumblr at meterokinesis as well!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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